Those were the tags the “Professor” used for this post:

Then the article continues, “By 2033, the port conservatively estimates it can spur $2 billion in private investment and 50,000 jobs.”

Um, I’m not holding my breath on that. C’mon.

And then, the article gets dark and cryptic. At least to me.

After talking about paying $850,000 for a study to determine whether the port should move either east of west, the story concludes that the area of focus for this big plan will be big projects for Cleveland and the inner-ring suburbs. “The strategy is sketchy on where the port would find money for such development…”

Ooh, I have a guess where they’ll find the money. They’ll find it in my wallet, and your wallet as well, through a tax increase. First the Medical Mart/Convention Center sales tax, now some yet to be determined tax increase (Sales tax? Property tax?) to pay for some vague programs at the Port Authority.

Let me take a step back. Your Professor is no knee-jerk anti-tax guy…

Nice work, Teach.

Political Science 216: Stop… Hammer Time! No can do.

Well, leaps in again:

At one point tonight at the weblogger meetup, our discussion drifted to the sales tax increase here in Cuyahoga County that is supposed to support the Med Mart/Convention Center. I now know that this is not necessarily the case: the actual proposal says that revenue from the tax increase will go to the general fund. While we all hope the county will use the money as planned, they have no restrictions, thus we have no guarantee where our hard earned money is going…

You should click thru to see his emphasis and leave a comment. Welcome back, Joe.

faithfulgeek.org // Agile development, life in Cleveland, etc.

Lou Burnett writes about politics in Louisiana. He is based in Shreveport, where a new convention center recently launched.

Lou’s Opinion column in his most recent e-newsletter highlights the importance of being careful about placing big bets in a soft market. Shreveport is now looking to beef up their hotel as a way to reduce the losses.

Opinion
Stop the Presses!
By Lou Gehrig Burnett

Bleeding albatross…
I hate to say I told you so…but I told you so. When then-Mayor Keith Hightower was pushing to build a convention center and hotel at taxpayer’s expense, I thought the project should have been put on hold. I was called a “naysayer.”
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the convention center business had changed. All the data showed that similar projects around the country were not succeeding and costing the taxpayers a bundle.
But these facts were ignored, and the convention center and hotel were pushed through the council on a series of 4-3 votes. The price tag to the taxpayers was about $150 million.
Just for the record, those four supportive council members were Monty Walford, James Green, Calvin Lester, and Theron Jackson. Walford and Lester are on the current council.
Now comes word that the project is not performing to expectations. Whose expectations? There were many of us who said all along that the project would be an albatross around the necks of city taxpayers. True, the convention center itself was never projected to be a money-maker.
But the expected amount the taxpayers would have to subsidize for the facility was touted at about $900,000 a year. For the year 2007, the financial loss for the convention center is projected at $2.2 million, which is $1.3 million more than we were told it was going to be. We don’t know yet how much of a burden the hotel will be upon the taxpayers.

We could advance support for the Medical Mart/Convention Center project with some detailed plans, reasonably presented.

This is the process Portland, OR is following. Portland is also considering a major hotel to strengthen its convention center.

Civic leaders are subjecting their options to intense scrutiny to build consensus. HQ hotel idea’s up for more debate.

It’s interesting to see how much information is being shared. You can learn more from the project web site’s overview, FAQs and project documents.

Note on the overview page this statement: “Metro and MERC are committed to a transparent and productive dialogue with interested parties from throughout the community”.

Out there inspiring the troops:

Tim Hagan spoke first, and set the tone and the message for the meeting. He did this in his urbane-yet-folksy way — that is what is most dangerous about him: he has a weird charisma. It seemed to me that, of all three, the audience paid most attention to him. As he developed his rationale for why this tax is so vitally important to the survival of NE Ohio, I was stunned by the politically inept points he made. He said that he had been a County Commissioner for 19 years and in that time he had seen the population of Cleveland dwindle from about 700K to 400K and 280K+ of that current population lives at or below poverty level. He said Cuyahoga County, during his time in service, had gone from 1.7M to 1.4M and that more than half our high school students do not graduate. This is a good track record – this is a “leader” that I should follow? He said that we have to do Medical Mart for the Cleveland Clinic and because, as the Clinic is the biggest employer in the state of Ohio (30K+), it has the economic edge. Hagan went on and in more disgusting blah-blah details. Repeatedly he reinforced the No Referendum mantra. Sycophantic at best.

Fred Nance was scheduled to speak next but he was interrupted, quite rudely, by Mr. Cimperman – who, busy man, had to leave but couldn’t do so without ramming home his message. Cimperman, who bears an uncanny resemblance to a thug masquerading as a boy scout, told this house that it should step aside and let the “leadership” handle this - the leadership knew what it was doing, and was tired of citizens questioning its actions: for once, the citizens should just get out of the way and let the leaders do it: and if the citizens don’t like it, elect someone else next time! This struck me as the same approach Cimperman has taken in his support for strip clubs in the Stonebridge neighborhood and the disastrous and ill-conceived “Remove the Ramps” campaign currently threatening the Edgewater/ Cudell neighborhoods, which I believe he supports. Uncaring – that was the impression he left me with – uncaring and out of touch.

Fred Nance was unreal - he did a PowerPoint that was any eerie shadow of a presentation recently done by Bioenterprise Inc in its “We need Pittsburgh as our partner” meeting. Mr. Nance claimed that it is a good thing that outside VCs (venture capitalists) are investing in Cleveland bio-enterprise. In fact, Bioenterprise Inc. had pointed out that out-of-state investment dollars in NE Ohio are not a good thing as they benefit outsiders and could lead to new NE Ohio bio-enterprise start-up companies being lured out of Ohio to other locations and taking their business, dollars, and knowledge with them – as has happened already. Ill-informed at least.

Tim Ferris: incredible, remarkable reports from the field

Just a little something, too little we might say, to think about while we’re on the subject of the public funding a project the size, of…let’s say…a convention center and medical mart.

From the “Notable Numbers” section, on the front page, of The Center for Community Solutions’ July/August 2007 Planning & Action issue.

See also Cuyahoga County Sales Tax Collection Level: July 2007 Update (7/07) for more specifics.

Leave it to Cleveland to want to adopt something that will give worse customer service. An email Gloria Ferris received. I’m reprinting it here, because her site is borked at the moment:

Hi Gloria,

I’m in the medical device business and per the following I don’t think the Medical Mart is a good idea. I submitted this to the PD Forum section last Friday but I do not know if it will ever see the light of day. I thought you might have some use for it.

“The Plain Dealer contends that a Medical Mart proposal from New York validates the concept. Unless you think Field of Dreams was a documentary the only credible validation is commitments by device manufacturers to exhibit. Here is an evaluation of the Medical Mart concept from a manufacturer’s perspective.

The Medical Mart will have permanent and temporary exhibit space. The permanent space is supposed to draw shoppers, but medical device customers are used to a higher level of service. Products are brought to them for evaluation, not the other way around. Institutions like the Cleveland Clinic have an office whose sole purpose is to control the army of vendors who are in its facility on a daily basis. Customers have no incentive to invest time and money in a trip to Cleveland when they see company reps daily or can pick up the phone in the morning and have four reps in their office that afternoon.

Medtronic claims to have a representative in the operating room every time one of its devices is used. Often the presence of a rep is required to answer questions about use of instrumentation or to provide assistance if unusual complications develop. The manufacturer uses this one-on-one customer contact to explain the benefits and advantages of its new products without the distraction of a competitor doing the same thing. Manufacturers have no reason to incur the additional cost of showing their products in a medical device bazaar.
(more…)

Love this comment from blackbob on cleveland.com:

The one’s I’ve been to in Chicago and Miami consisted of 4 or 5 medical equipment manufacturers and over a hundred mom & pop used equipment sellers (i.e. no warranty, no guarantee of products not being stolen, etc.) I’ve found that Hospitals buy new, buy direct and only go to “trade shows” to get information. If I construed the meaning of the term “med mart” into just another used equipment flea market when the mayors actually are thinking “trade show”, then I apologize for my confusion…

Mayors to announce support for Med Mart plan - Cleveland Metro News – The Latest Breaking News, Photos and Stories from The Plain Dealer

A high compliment (IMO) from James Renner and George Coghill in this week’s Free Times. Bonus reading, the column by Anastasia Pantsios.